USA - Investors marveling at the striking similarities of the bull market today to the one that ended in 1987 are hoping history doesn’t repeat itself. If it does, the market could be in some serious trouble in 37 trading days. In 37 trading days, the ongoing bull market would be 1,311 trading days old, says Jim Paulsen of Wells Capital Management. That is a scary date because it was on the 1,311 trading day after the start of the 1982 bull market that the Standard & Poor’s 500 suffered its biggest one-day crash in history on October 19, 1987. That crash snuffed out what had been a powerful market rally starting in 1982. Normally these kinds of things are just market oddities. But investors are taking this one seriously since there are such strong similarities with the 1982 bull market and the one the market is currently in.

RUSSIA - Russia’s foreign ministry has threatened to impede the operations of American diplomatic missions in the country, after US bank JPMorgan Chase on Tuesday blocked a remittance from the Russian embassy in Kazakhstan to an insurance agency. The Russian embassy had been due to transfer less than $5,000 to the Sogaz Insurance Group for regular services rendered, according to the Financial Times, but JPMorgan halted the transaction as Sogaz was part-owned by Bank Rossiya, one of the targets of US sanctions announced on March 20. Interfering with the transaction was an “absolutely unacceptable, illegal and absurd decision,” Alexander Lukashevich, a foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

AFGHANISTAN - Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose 36 per cent in 2013, a record high, according to the 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey released today in Kabul by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and UNODC. Meanwhile, opium production amounted to 5,500 tons, up by almost a half since 2012. Calling the news “sobering”, Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC, stressed that this situation poses a threat to health, stability and development in Afghanistan and beyond: “What is needed is an integrated, comprehensive response to the drug problem. Counter-narcotics efforts must be an integral part of the security, development and institution-building agenda”.

USA - Parents of a healthy newborn infant were told to consent to injecting him with drugs or lose him to the state. This successful blackmail scheme was made possible by the state’s horrifying ability to seize children without due process.

USA - The ability to link human brains to machines, create new life forms and build Star Trek-style disease detectors will be the focus of a new Defense Department office soon. The new office, named the Biological Technology Office, or BTO, will serve as a clearinghouse for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, programs into brain research, synthetic biology and epidemiology.

EUROPE - European Union Force RCA, led by the French Major-General Philippe Ponties, will comprise up to 1,000 troops. They are to provide “temporary support in achieving a safe and secure environment in the area, with a view to handing over to a UN peacekeeping operation or to African partners.” The HQ and the troops will be located in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic and its largest city. The operational center will be located in Larissa, Greece. The troops are to be deployed rapidly to ensure "the immediate effect" of the operation. The mission is tasked with “protecting the populations most at risk and to the creation of the conditions for providing humanitarian aid.”

TEMPLE MOUNT, JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Two Jews have petitioned Jerusalem police in the name of dozens of others for permission to carry out the mitzvah of the Passover sacrifice on the Temple Mount this year, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years. The petitioners claim that police authorization is the only obstacle to ascending the Temple Mount, praying and offering their sacrifice of a lamb, as commanded in the Torah.

TEMPLE MOUNT, JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - It has recently been reported that a group of prominent Israeli rabbis and other public figures, among them some who are considered to be moderates, not extremists, has written a letter to the prime minister urging that he “establish a place of prayer for Jews on the Temple Mount,” which seems to mean to permit the building of a synagogue there. One supporter of this project even wrote in this newspaper that building a synagogue there “will not heighten the Arab-Jewish conflict, it will lessen it.”

VATICAN - The Queen has met Pope Francis for the first time during a five hour visit to Rome, receiving a gift for Prince George from the pontiff. After lunch with President Giorgio Napolitano in the Quirinale palace, the Queen crossed the Tiber for a private audience with the Pope, who gave her a blue orb decorated with a silver cross for her eight-month-old grandson. It is the Queen's first visit to Rome in 14 years. She was welcomed by an honour guard of Sardinian grenadiers, Carabinieri cavalry, navy and air force, and given a bouquet of flowers by an eight-year-old girl. The visit was agreed amid assurances that the Holy See would remain neutral on the contentious issue of the Falkland Islands.

CHILE - A powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake has rocked northern Chile, just over 24 hours after an 8.2 tremor killed six people, destroyed 2,600 houses and led to mass evacuations. A tsunami alert in Chile and Peru was again issued, but was later lifted after waves of 2.4ft (0.7 meters) hit coastal areas. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet was among those evacuated on Thursday. The quake is the strongest of several aftershocks following Tuesday's tremor. The aftershock caused buildings to wobble and people to run into the streets in the port of Iquique, which was one of the cities hit by Tuesday night's quake. Fires destroyed some businesses in the area and fishermen found their boats sunken and damaged in Iquique harbour.

UK - “They are definitely getting bigger” is one of those phrases that men like chief pest control officer Colin Watts utter with just a hint of glee. On the streets where he operates, there have been 5,100 rat sightings in the past year, some the size of small cats. Watts recalls encountering one two-foot hulk as “wide as a brick”. Others he has trapped have weighed the equivalent of two bags of sugar.

USA - Scores of scientists have condemned a journal editor's retraction of a study that reported a number of serious side effects in lab rats that consumed Monsanto's genetically modified maize and Roundup herbicide. In all, according to a press release by a group called End Science Censorship, the number of scientists decrying the retraction has climbed to 150.

USA - Has the United States ever experienced a time when a foreign nation has attempted to buy up so much of our land all at once? As you will read about in this article, the Chinese are on a real estate buying spree all over America. In fact, in some cases large chunks of land are actually being given to them. Yes, you read that correctly. China is on the way to becoming the dominant land owner in the entire country, and that is starting to alarm a lot of people. Do we really want a foreign superpower to physically own so much of our territory?

USA - An Obama administration plan to give up oversight of certain technical Internet functions could open the door to a takeover by authoritarian regimes, Republican lawmakers claimed Wednesday. If Russia or China gain new influence over the management of the Internet, they could begin censoring content or blocking websites, the Republicans warned. "Make no mistake: Threats to the openness and freedom of the Internet are real," said Republican Representative Greg Walden, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee, which held a hearing on the issue Wednesday. "Leaders such as Vladimir Putin have explicitly announced their desire to gain control of the Internet."

USA - The US stock market is rigged in favor of high-speed electronic trading firms, which use their advantages to extract billions from investors, according to Michael Lewis, author of a new book on the topic, "Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt."